Pumpkin Pasties Recipe - Sweet and Savoury

Hello, everyone! Some of you might remember that I hosted a Harry Potter Board Games Day a few weekends ago, and on the menu, I had sweet and savoury Pumpkin Pasties. I promised that I would share the recipes for these pasties, and I'm here to deliver on that promise! Pumpkin Pasties are a popular treat in Wizarding Britain, and I think that whenever a Potter-phile is asked what food they would love to try from the Harry Potter books, these treats would most likely be in the top five, among Butterbeer, Cauldron Cakes, Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans.

I did a lot of research on pumpkin pasties recipes, and it seemed like they were all some variation of the pumpkin pie; sweet, crusty and full of spices. Not a problem for me, though a lot of the recipes required so many ingredients or canned pumpkin puree. As I had to keep costs down, I found recipes that used fewer ingredients, though it still asked for pumpkin puree. I got the recipes from Bijoux and Bits and altered a couple of things to make it easier. I used puff pastry instead of pie dough as I wanted a flakier experience and it was quicker to buy puff pastry than it is to make pie dough from scratch when I was strapped for time. I also had to prepare my own pumpkin puree as I couldn't find canned puree. Oh, and funnily enough, we don't have pumpkin pie spice in any of the supermarkets here in Australia, so I had to make them from scratch.

And because I had to make them from scratch, I had to run to the store because I ran out of cinnamon. I got the recipe for the pie spice from Betty Crocker's website.

So, I'm gonna cover all of the bits and pieces for this recipe, starting with the pureeing of the pumpkins. Here's a link to a recipe for Pumpkin Juice that I found over on Food in Literature. I would have done a post on the pumpkin juice but as it was a direct copy (save the reduction in the amount of sugar) I thought it was better to introduce you to the mastermind that created the pumpkin juice that is identical to the one at Wizarding World. However, as some of you might not have access to pumpkin puree, I'm going to tell you how to use one pumpkin for both pumpkin pasties and pumpkin juice.

PUMPKIN PUREE
Yield: about 500-600g

Ingredients:
1 whole pumpkin (you can use a butternut squash for a more pumpkiny flavour, but I used Kent pumpkin)
1 cup water

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
2. Remove the stem from the pumpkin with a heavy knife, and then cut the pumpkin in half. Use a spoon to scoop out the innards, you can toss them or save the seeds for something else. Remove the skin from the pumpkin, then cut the pumpkin into large chunks to reduce cooking time.
3. Place the pumpkin chunks onto a roasting tray with the water. This helps to keep the pumpkin moist and prevent it from burning. Bake for about 90 minutes or until the pumpkin is tender and cooked through. Test with a skewer or knife. Remove from oven and let cool.
4. When the pumpkin has cooled down but is not cold, blend the pumpkin, along with the water, in a food processor or blender. I have neither so I used a stick blender to puree it in batches.
5. Line a sieve with a clean tea towel or muslin and scoop spoonfuls of pumpkin into it. Gather the edges of the fabric and twist it together to squeeze out the liquid until barely any liquid comes out. Put the puree into a separate bowl and use to make pasties, and reserve the liquid to make pumpkin juice.
6. After all that straining, the liquid will be quite thick, and if used as is, it makes the pumpkin juice thick like soup (I made this mistake, unfortunately, hence this tip) Pour the juice into the sieve lined with the fabric and leave to drip freely on its own into a clean bowl. Do not squeeze out the juice or else it will be thick again. The fabric will catch whatever solids are left, and the juice will collect in the bowl. It may take a long time, but it is worth it.

I folded the edges for the savoury pasties so that I could tell the difference between the two

Here, for the sweet ones, I twisted the edges for a rope-like appearance. I like this one because it looks quite witchy!

A small bowl of about 2 tbsp milk to moisten edges and seal the pasties.
1 egg, for egg wash.

Directions:
1. Take the puff pastry out of the freezer one to two hours prior to making the pasties to defrost. While you're making the pasties and have opened the packaging, keep the pastry moist with a damp tea towel.
2. Preheat the oven to 200ºC and line baking trays with baking paper (two trays for each version). Mix all the ingredients except the pastry sheets for the savoury version together in a bowl, and do the same for the sweet version in a separate bowl.
3. Taking a sheet of the pastry, cut into quarters so that you have four squares. Spoon the pumpkin mix into each square, just off-center. Moisten two edges of each square and fold over the pastry to form a triangle. Press both sides firmly together and decorate with a fork, spoon, or by folding or twisting the edges, which is what I did.
4. Set them on the tray with enough space between each pastie, and pierce the tops with a sharp knife. Piercing the pasties is an important step to let the air out as the pastry expands while cooking. Without the holes, the edges can start unravelling and breaking apart.
5. Add the egg to the milk and lightly whisk to make the egg wash. Brush the egg wash onto the tops of the pasties with a pastry brush, and bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden.
6. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool. This is good hot or cold, so serve to your liking.

Man, this was such a long post. There were a lot of bases to cover, especially for us Australians as we don't have easy access to tinned pumpkin puree or pumpkin pie spice. This recipe is perfect for the fall, since a lot of my friends in the Northern Hemisphere appear to love everything pumpkin and pumpkin spice.

Both recipes are delicious, but being me, of course, I preferred the savoury one. If I had my way I would have added twice the amount of cheddar and a tad more salt but I figure that everyone else wouldn't agree. Making the pasties was easy and quick to make, but doing the puree was very time-consuming, so I might not make this again for a long time unless I can find some canned puree.

So what did you think of this post? Would you try to make this yourself?

2
comments:

To be completely honest I don't know if I can be bothered making these myself but I would eat them in a heart beat! I've always wanted to try these. I'd love to try so many of the foods from the Wizarding world actually...

Yeah, it's really a lot of effort so I would only make these like once a year, more if I can get around to finding pumpkin puree. If you ever do get to go to Wizarding World, don't eat the food in the Three Broomsticks, it's a waste of money for cold, bland food.